Poor report card results and no contact from teacher!

Sorry you feel like people are criticising, I don't think that is the case, just people trying to explain the way the system works.

As a primary teacher I would not be contacting parents if a child was 6 mths behind where they need to be, especially as kids can be making really great progress, be happy, positive and enthusiastic, and not "struggling" but just happen to be behind a benchmark that is set by government. I also expect all parents to attend pt interviews which doesn't happen all the time so maybe I am unreasonable in that expectation.

At my school we aim for there to be no surprises come report time. It is a huge part of our job to keep parents in the loop, through many channels. Having said this, this is the culture of the school. The principal has worked with staff to make sure we are all trying to do this. No one is perfect, but it can be a road that is met in the middle. I agree with other advice of making a meeting, after that, go with your gut, vote with your feet for your daughters best interest (which of course is your priority). I wish you luck in your choices and I think your passionate because it is your daughter - it's natural to feel emotional because you care so deeply xxx

2girlz, I agree with you - I would be very unhappy if I had been told that my child is doing 'fine' and then I received a report card which showed that s/he was performing at a level below what is expected at this time of year. To say that the teacher may not have been aware of the issue until now would make me even angrier. I expect that my child's teacher is constantly evaluating her performance and ability to ensure that she is being taught at the correct level and has grasped each concept before building on that concept with further teaching.

A couple of PP's have said that they wouldn't expect contact from the teacher, particularly if your child is not in the lowest performing group. I don't paticularly care how other children in the class are performing, I only care how my child is performing and how that performance measures against the standardised expectations for that time of year. The fact that other children may be struggling a lot does not diminish the fact that my child is struggling a little!

I don't think a D is cause for great angst, I do think it is worthy of a meeting with your DD's teacher. I agree with PP's that there is no reason that you shouldn't contact the school to make an appointment. I agree with the poster who suggested that email might be a great way to keep in touch with the teacher.

FWIW, my DS (grade 2) has lagged behind in his literacy and achieved a D on his last report. I was contacted by the school well prior to receiving his report card and I have been invited to attend numerous meetings with his class teacher, the literacy specialist teacher and the head of literacy learning. In each meeting, it has been explained to me what level my DS is at in terms of his literacy, what the expected level is at that time of year, what measures are currently being undertaken to assist my DS with his literacy and what the future plan of assistance is. My DS is not lagging a great deal, he is slightly behind the expected level. I am very pleased with the way that the school is assisting my DS, giving me direction in the best way to assist him and keeping me informed of his progress. I would expect- and accept- nothing less.

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FWIW, my DS (grade 2) has lagged behind in his literacy and achieved a D on his last report. I was contacted by the school well prior to receiving his report card and I have been invited to attend numerous meetings with his class teacher, the literacy specialist teacher and the head of literacy learning. In each meeting, it has been explained to me what level my DS is at in terms of his literacy, what the expected level is at that time of year, what measures are currently being undertaken to assist my DS with his literacy and what the future plan of assistance is. My DS is not lagging a great deal, he is slightly behind the expected level. I am very pleased with the way that the school is assisting my DS, giving me direction in the best way to assist him and keeping me informed of his progress. I would expect- and accept- nothing less.

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I agree with this so much!! This is the important stuff. Clear steps to help the student do their very best. There are some great ideas here for you to take to your meeting :)

I am in qld too and have just received our 2nd term report card. They have actually used the vha, ha, sound etc terminology on this one. At the bottom it says, parent teacher interview welcomed but not required. I figure others may have a comment saying recommended etc. our teacher says she will speak to a parent throughout the year as things arise, but i can see how that may not happen for working parents as easily.

Emailing the office would be a good idea and sending a note to school with your child is something else I have done on the days I work.

Apparently, a sound 'c' is what they want all children to achieve by certain times of the year and is a good mark.

Sometimes children don't particularly respond well to certain types of assessment. For eg, my dd got a sound in history because it was an oral presentation and she used a quiet voice. However, she understood the concepts really well.

I think you should sim to touch base with your teacher, if only to get her to explain how and why the report card is graded etc.

By the way, I would be annoyed if told she was doing well and then got a d. But I'm sure the teacher can talk you through it. Good luck.

Thank you, the last couple of posts have been more enlightening. I will certainly be requesting a parent teacher interview to discuss where she is struggling and what will be done to help her along.

I agree. A relationship with your childs school is very important. When I only had DD1 at school I didn't realise how important this was. I was lucky that even though she wasn't top of the class, she didn't struggle too much.
But when DD2 started (a month younger than your DD, in grade 3 also, so young) I had to be involved. DD2's kindy (prep) teacher DID contact me. But her contact was because she thought DD may have had some learning problems/disabilities. Turns out she was right & now I worry so much about DD2 being left behind that I don't give the school an option. I know of at least one other mother who has a daughter having issues at school (violence) & it wasn't brought to her attention until they put it in the report card. THAT was not fair. But I bug the school year round about how DD2 is doing, not jus report time.

Our school principle isn't the greatest. Most of the community can't stand her & want her gone (for VERY good reason). I honestly bypass her, straight to my kids teachers. She only seems to care about the schools reputation, the teachers actually care about the kids.

I think being a smaller school helps us. But I'd talk to her teacher, find out where she's struggling & ways to help. For DD2 this year, its been as simple as getting her to write out made up stories at home & think about punctuation & paragraphs etc. And that works for DD2, because her mind isn't academic, it's creative. Structured homework to help DD isn't worth the time & stress for her to do it. Making up her own princess stories is something she's keen to do :)

As a primary teacher I have to disagree with a lot of the comments here. I would think I hadn't done my job if the report card was the first time a parent was learning that her child was receiving a "D". As for the person who said that the teacher may not have known it would be a D until report time. That's a pretty poor teacher and reason enough to leave I think. A student earning a D is not "doing fine" and that comment is extremely misleading. It may only be 4-6 months behind the average but at the age you're talking about, those 6 months are extremely important.
I agree that there are a lot of parents who are not interested in communicating with teachers but this isn't a reason to get jaded. Just because some parents are slack and don't attend interviews etc doesn't mean that we should stop communicating with parents at all! I would be asking for an email address where you can contact the teacher on a regular basis. Maybe even asking for the maths book to be sent home weekly so you can see what they're doing in class and where she is lacking.
From the little bit you have told us, it sounds like a lazy teacher to me. It is part of our job to communicate with parents and work to help kids do better than a D. The C in effort would be worrying me as well. Why is she not putting in full effort? I'd be talking to the teacher about that as well. To me the effort marks are more important than achievement and I would be expecting As or Bs in effort. The teacher needs to motivate kids to put the effort in. Just my two cents worth.

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The C in effort would be worrying me as well. Why is she not putting in full effort?

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See this is where the new system and differences in systems across Australia stinks because in Vic and I am assuming NSW as well (not sure bout Qld) a C IS where kids should be at. We don't give a progression point for effort but if the system is like the Vic one - then a C is where they should be at - a B or A is really difficult to give as the criteria they need to meet to be at a B or A (Over 6-12-18mths in front of where they should be at in that grade) is pretty high.

A student getting a D in Victoria, who is progressing well IS doing fine. If the system is still the "old" A,B.C.D,E system like it was when we were at school then different story but I thought QLD was similar to Vic and NSW on this???

Makes me mad that the system is SO different across the different states - wonder if AUSVels and National Curriculum will ease some of this....(Probably not!)

I was of the opinion that the national curriculum is already being used? It is in our qld school, they are always banging in about it.

It is, but as it gets more heavily implemented I guess my hope is that the states somehow come into alignment with each other( I'm dreaming....)

There's a phase in for the different subjects; currently English, Science, history and Maths are national curriculum. I can't quite remember which subjects start next year - I think one is the languages (German, French, Indonesian, etc) and another geography but I could be getting those wrong. The remainder of subjects should be being introduced/taught in 2015. I think it's roughly 4 new teaching areas each year.
Just so you know there are some quite broad teaching areas. The Arts covers music, drama, traditional art, dance; Technologies will cover metalwork, woodwork, home ec (cooking & sewing) and I think ICT (aka computers)

I understand how you feel 2girlz. It doesn't feel good to get a report that doesn't match what you're expecting to see.

Personally to me it's more important that my kids are achieving to their potential than how they are going compared to other kids or arbitary benchmarks. But I would have similar concerns. I think the "D" is probably not a problem - if it was the teacher probably wouldn't be saying "she's fine", so try not to worry about that, but I can understand that you want to know more about that to know whether you should be worried or not. If was me, I'd also want to know more about why the effort is a "C". Is it because she's struggling, or is it because she's bored - sometimes kids get worse results when the work is too easy than when it's too hard because they disengage, is it because she's having trouble concentrating, in short - is there an issue that I should know about? And personally, if the answer to that is yes, then I think the teacher should have discussed it with you already. Our school has parent teacher interviews in week 2 of term 3 so parents can discuss reports. If yours doesn't then I would organise a time to talk to the teacher to find out more about that.

We actually changed schools in part because there was a real issue that was not being addressed and which we were not made aware of. I'm so much happier since we changed schools. So if something doesn't feel right, it's ok to say so and to look at options.